MAKAWAO, Maui >> The oversized Ford pickup truck bounced over ruts in a grassy field, passengers sliding in their seats, as Keali’i Reichel steered toward the top of a rise. Sunlight shone golden through a voggy haze thick enough to obscure the lowlands and ocean below.

Looking out over the Upcountry field as the four-wheel-drive truck shuddered over a dirt track, he spoke of a dream 20 years in the making: a cultural resource center, built in the style of a large, open-air Hawaiian hale, that would host hula practices, a classroom, an office and an archive of Hawaiian cultural items.

The $1.2 million center on 3-1/2 acres in the area known as Piiholo would be home to the renowned kumu hula and recording artist’s Halau Ke’alaokamaile.

Minutes later Reichel stood in the grass, arms extended to the horizon.

“We’re trying to revive a certain protocol in the hula realm,” he said, placing his hand over his heart to emphasize his words. “To enrich the spiritual, not just the physical, realm; that’s just one aspect of it.”

These are momentous times for Reichel, and not just because he can see his dream close to becoming reality on the slopes of Haleakala.

On Saturday and Feb. 14, Reichel and Halau Ke’alaokamaile will present “Kukahi,” a concert of hula and music at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. On Feb. 15 he will be a presenter at the Grammy Awards and will wait to see if his name is called as the winner of the regional roots category. He is a nominee for “Kawaiokalena,” his latest album.

Reichel is best known as a Hawaiian musician and producer of crowd-pleasing, polished performances showcasing his music and hula. But he’s also a lifelong student of Hawaiian culture. At 53 he’s been kumu hula to his halau for more than 35 years.

He describes the center he envisions as a potential legacy, a concept that has become more important to him as he grows older. He has amassed a collection of Hawaiian documents, chants and mele, most specific to Maui. The building, which could be completed in as soon as two years, would be a repository for that collection and more.

Reichel’s halau currently uses space in three different locations, with dance practices held at a community center on Hawaiian homelands property in Wailuku.

The center would be good for more than just his halau, he said.

“I’ve started to ask, how cool would it be if every district, every subdivision were to have a Hawaiian cultural space? You got plenty spaces for yoga, plenty spaces for ballet — even pole dancing,” he said, cracking a thin smile. “But you want to bring hula halau to the community? They use garages, community space. They are nomadic.”

To have a permanent space is relatively rare for a halau, but Reichel believes the center could inspire others to seek similar stability.

“It would be good to have a Hawaiian space,” he said. “This helps people understand what we are trying to do. It helps avoid homogenization. And I cannot stand homogenization. I like our differences.”

From the top of the grassy hill, Reichel pointed at a lone storage container standing in the field.

“I knew I wanted to have a halau, permanent halau. So I went ahead and bought the flooring — solid ohia flooring — about 20 years ago … and I thought, ‘We’ll build the halau around this floor!’”

Gesturing again toward the horizon, he noted, “There are a whole line of hills that go all the way down to the ocean, and they’re all interconnected. They’re all landmarks. And each of these hills is sacred or provides some sort of center for that particular place.

“All hills are important, yeah, because from a distance, you see, you can mark yourself in the universe, where you are on the island.

“Right below that hill there is a series of ponds. They were known as the royal ponds of Kalena. … And the name of my last CD is ‘Kawaiokalena,’ which is ‘the waters of Kalena.’”

He appreciates the poetry of this property, looking over the lands which inspired the songs and chants included on “Kawaiokalena.” The siting is a happy coincidence, he noted: Members of the Native Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce introduced him to the landowner, Maui entrepreneur Karin Frost, who created the popular Ergobaby carriers.

Reichel himself moved to Upcountry from Wailuku in 2004, to a home not far from the proposed halau site. Only after years on the land was he ready to compose the songs for his Grammy-nominated album.

Permitting must go forward before construction can begin on the site. Reichel hopes to see an answer on the application by August.

The property is zoned as agricultural land, but a zipline attraction was approved nearby, Reichel pointed out. “Why not a halau?” he asked.

In coversation Reichel is intense, his voice often staccato. He’s known for being stern, as a kumu and a performance producer. That’s in contrast to his singing voice, a soft, golden instrument that soothes, calls and comforts.

“He doesn’t like things to be too easy,” said Reichel’s husband and business partner, Punahele Krauss. “He thinks that people work better when they’re stressed. I am the complete opposite.”

Krauss, 55, runs the Mele.com music website and manages logistics for Reichel, making travel arrangements and coordinating media requests, among myriad other things.

Crediting Krauss for helping him to be more flexible, Reichel laughingly said, “I can be real hard-ass about some things, but I can be open to suggestion.”

He dressed in a T-shirt, cargo shorts and slippers, his long hair pulled back into a braid and head covered with a cap.

His arms and legs are muscular from regular workouts, and he visits a tanning salon to even out tan lines when he’s going to be wearing a malo for a performance. On an average day, though, Reichel shows little evidence of vanity. A grocery store savings tag hangs from his key chain. He’s often holding a takeout coffee cup and admits he’s “an all-day coffee kine.”

On this day, Reichel moved from the Upcountry meeting, ending at sunset, to his halau’s practice space in Wailuku. The intense rehearsal was a run-through of “Kukahi.”

“Kukahi” was last presented in 2013, and Maui residents have missed it.

The concerts are treasured. Not only are they a gorgeous and meticulously rehearsed showcase for Reichel’s music and his halau, but they reveal much of his love for the islands, his opinions about the culture and his bonds with family. They are both extravagant and personal, and so they charm.

“With ‘Kukahi,’ what we hope is to take the audience on a journey to see what we’ve been up to for the past three years, to visit with old friends who were fans and have become friends over the years,” he said. “To inspire, hopefully, other people to delve into their own history, to delve into their culture — and not necessarily hula.”

Smiling, he elaborated, “If you’re Japanese, delve into your Japanese-ness!”

In past years he would plan “Kukahi” to the letter, dreaming up extravagant set pieces. But now he’s streamlined the production to emphasize hula rather than spectacle, he said.

“As the years go by, I can’t bungee from the ceiling because I did that already,” he said. “I can’t come up from the stage because I did that.”

A trade-off is inevitable, he said.

“There’s an interesting give-and-take, because you can’t have your cake and eat it, too,” he said. “So if your primary interest is doing huge concerts like this, and doing them several times a year, there are aspects of hula training that you cannot do.”

From an early age, hula and the Hawaiian language have been a preoccupation for Reichel.

He was born and grew up on Maui, dividing his time between his home in Lahaina and his grandmother’s house in Paia on the island’s windward shore.

Before he became a popular musician, his earliest background was as a student and teacher of Hawaiian culture. As a young man he was a founding director of the Hawaiian-language immersion preschool Punana Leo o Maui.

His work as a cultural resource specialist and curator at Wailuku’s Bailey House Museum became a lasting touchstone, shaping his view of himself as an archivist.

Throughout the years, with all his growing fame, Reichel said he carried the “baggage” of craving time out of the public eye. But he embraced the dichotomy — recording albums, producing big-budget concerts and continuously guiding the halau.

For a run of only three years, from 2009 through 2011, he brought his halau to the world-famous Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo. Halau Ke’alaokamaile was recognized with awards each year, including the overall title in 2011. He’s also been a judge at the hula competition.

“You cannot let competition define you. It’s only seven minutes out of your life. … But yet, it’s a double-edged sword,” Reichel said. “It’s important. You go to win, but you cannot let it define you if you don’t. It’s so weird.”

Merrie Monarch only added to his list of impressive achievements. As one of Hawaii’s most popular recording artists, Reichel and his albums have garnered more than 30 Na Hoku Hanohano Awards for his music, while his albums have consistently risen to a top spot on world music charts.

Reichel’s debut album, “Kawaipunahele,” was released in 1994 to great acclaim, earning him Hokus for most promising artist, male vocalist of the year and album of the year. It sold more than 350,000 copies in its first pressing and was rereleased by Atlantic Records, along with his 1995 and 1997 albums, “Lei Hali’a” and “E O Mai.”

In 2011 he was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame.

“Kawaipunahele” put Reichel in the public eye. “And I don’t like them to look!” he said.

“When this was thrown in my lap, I had to make a choice. This was back in my 30s, and I almost didn’t choose this. Because it was starting to get nuts already. I went from relative obscurity, literally overnight. I almost got to the point where I was going to quit and go back to my museum work, because that was my training at the time. … It was so much safer and very, very private. And I prefer that, in a sense.

“I came to a crossroads and I had to choose. And so once I chose, for the last 20 years, I dove in completely. Unabashed. Uncomfortable, but you gotta do it.”

He’s turned down offers to appear on television when he felt that his work would be presented in a superficial manner. But he also proudly talks of performing at a birthday celebration for first lady Michelle Obama hosted by Oprah Winfrey, who owns several properties on Maui.

“It’s Oprah,” he said. “Oprah. One of the greatest orators in the world. … The power of her ability to draw people together is crazy. And as a Hawaiian orator, it punches all my buttons. … So when I got the call, ‘Oh yeah, I’m going!’”

Now that he’s “fitty-tree,” Reichel said, letting his pidgin flag fly, he’s ready to step away from the spotlight.

“I’ve been doing this for a couple of decades and stuff, and I can see the light at the end of my life tunnel,” he said. “If the average age is 70 or 80, that’s another 20 or 30 years. That’s not a long time. And I don’t want to be uncomfortable.

“And so I still recognize the need to participate, but I try to do as little as possible, so I can be comfortable in my dotage.”

Hula and the halau remain Reichel’s driving force. He is an exacting taskmaster.

“You don’t hula just for exercise; you go to perform. I get a lot of students like that who say, like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to perform, I just want to do it for the exercise,’” he said, mimicking a fatuous falsetto. “Go join a gym, yeah?

“I say, ‘You will dance in front of people when I tell you to dance.’ That is part of the hula, to bring all that to fruition and do your job and mesmerize an audience. To be that vessel, to bring back a dance, or 10 or 20. We fill you up, and you need to fill somebody else up, through your movement, through your internalization. That’s the whole cyclical process of hula.”

That is why he teaches, what “Kukahi” is for, he said.

“I also firmly believe that Hawaiian music can be on any world stage,” he said. “We can keep up with the Joneses. We can do high-end lights, tech, video. It’s a little bit more challenging because you have to have the audience to do it. We’ve been lucky that way.”

In March, Reichel and three dancers will embark on an eight-city tour of Japan. The performances will not be as elaborately produced as “Kukahi,” and they are far different from the large-scale concerts he once produced in Tokyo with 50 dancers, musicians and stagehands in tow.

He never really loved producing those big shows.

“I loved the fulfillment of the dancers and the musicians,” he said. “What I did was a catalyst for them to do what they’re meant to do and what they’re trained to do, and so I’m really happy about that. I love that aspect of it. But it’s always been like pulling teeth.”

Once on stage he’s fine.

“All that baggage goes, and the doubts and all of the insecurities melt away,” he said. “Because you have no choice. You’re already there. So whether I’m doing a performance for 1,000 people or 10,000 people, the effort is the same. Reaching out to an audience and bringing them in, and making them see that.”

After rehearsing with the halau until late into the night, Reichel was up early the next day, scheduled for a radio interview at KPOA FM in Kahului.

Krauss brought doughnuts from T. Komoda Bakery in Makawao, presenting them to deejay Alaka’i Paleka. The conversation unwound casually, as if two friends were joking at a diner counter.

Leaving the radio station, Reichel departed on a search for coffee in Wailuku, circling a block near an auto parts store to find the entrance to Maui Coffee Attic on Kanoa Street. After that he met with his personal trainer before another session that evening with Halau Ke’alaokamaile.

At practice, dancers tried on dresses to be worn for “Kukahi.” Some were being worn for the first time; others had been in storage since the last concert. Reichel was stern when a dress fit badly, chiding dancers that they should have informed him earlier.

Reichel strives to operate the halau like “a well-oiled machine,” said Henohea Kane, 32, Miss Aloha Hula at the 2009 Merrie Monarch and Reichel’s cousin. She’s danced with him for 26 years.

“In order to maintain the discipline and the order of the halau, he has to be like that,” she said.

Kane has taken on a growing role in Halau Ke’alaokamaile, with responsibility for the students ages 3 to 9 and a second-in-command role with the adult troupe. She routinely performs and travels with her kumu hula.

“I can sum it up in one word,” she said. “That word is ‘kuleana.’ It means privilege and it means burden,” she said. “He has big shoes. I feel a lot of burden to do well, and to do well by him.”

Reichel and Krauss will catch a midnight plane to Los Angeles after the second performance of “Kukahi” on Feb. 14. Arriving at dawn, Reichel will go to the Staples Center to serve as a presenter for the Premiere Grammy Awards Ceremony, which precedes the prime-time CBS telecast. That’s where he will learn whether he has been chosen as a Grammy winner.

“Kawaiokalena” is one of two Hawaiian-music albums nominated in the regional roots category; the other is “La La La La,” by Natalie Ai Kamauu. Reichel was a Grammy finalist in the Hawaiian-music album category in 2005. The category was eliminated in 2011 when the Grammy organization decided to consolidate some of the genres.

“If this is his last album — he says it is and I believe him — this would be an ideal capping of a 20-year journey,” Krauss said.

As with most public obligations, Reichel said he’s conflicted about the appearance.

“Participation in the Grammys or the Hokus has always been a sore spot for me. I don’t like the attention. I don’t like the expectations,” he said.

“If it’s going to help further cultural awareness without so much focusing on … me,” he added, laughing — an explosive bark, releasing the tension — “then I’m willing to put up with it.”

It can be difficult to integrate his passion for Hawaiian language and culture with the gloss and adulation of awards ceremonies. Asked about his sometimes apparent discomfort, he laughed again before turning serious.

“Sometimes people mistake that for ungratefulness, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s that I’m uncomfortable. It’s an uncomfortable place to be when everybody’s looking. It’s odd, given the chosen profession — and this is chosen.”

Looking down at his coffee at a table behind the Wailuku shop, feral chickens circling, Reichel was not conflicted about his purpose.

“Hula will drive me; that’s the bottom line,” he said. “I think in some sense I’ll always be a kumu hula.

“I don’t want to leave without making sure that whatever we’ve created with the halau will continue.”